The idea of initiating international Olympiads in informatics for school students was proposed to the 24th General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris by the Bulgarian delegate Professor Blagovest Sendov in October 1987. This plan was included into the Fifth Main Program of UNESCO for the biennium 1988-1989 (Section 05 215). In March 1989 at the "Future Development of International Olympiads for Youth" consultative UNESCO meeting, Professor Pavel Azalov presented a report titled "Introduction to the Olympiad in Informatics". In May 1989, UNESCO initiated and sponsored the first International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI). [Quoted from the IOI'89 and IOI'92 Report.]

The IOI is one of seven international science Olympiads. The primary goal of the IOI is to stimulate interest in informatics (computing science) and information technology. Another important goal is to bring together exceptionally talented pupils from various countries and to have them share scientific and cultural experiences.

The IOI is organized annually in and by one of the participating countries. Each participating country typically sends a delegation of four pupils and two accompanying adults. The pupils compete individually and try to maximize their score by solving a set of informatics problems during two competition days. The problems have been algorithmic programming problems to be solved on a personal computer. Cultural and recreational events are organized on the remaining days.

IOI'2009 is the 21st International Olympiad in Informatics. Following the links below you can visit their web sites as listed on the official IOI web site.